Wednesday, 31 August 2016

With this show Astrotwitch and Be Free continue their experiment in collaboration, and mixing their different creative styles. Now that they are in their home city expect the collaboration to include more production and more new experiments. Come out to see how these two artists, both heavily influenced by street art practices, blend together to create something fun and colorfulLane's End Gallery, 404 Fitzroy Street Fitzroy, Melbourne 3065

Wearing my overdose awareness day badge with pride and thinking of young Bouwka (15) who sneaked off and scored one night in Amsterdam and due to the social stigma attached to using heroin (BLOODY JUNKIES) shot up for the first time alone and was found dead the next morning

Hey! I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to say that to you again. But here we are! Obviously, it’s been a rough two months, but I’m ready to go back to normal, if you guys are. This was the post that was up the day the blog was disabled. I’m leaving the p.s. and the comments that came in before the shut down as they were, and of course please add your comments today. Between now and next Monday, you will be getting posts that were already set up and originally intended to launch before the blackout, and then on Tuesday we’ll go all new. The archive of the old blog will slowly appear here, but I have to do hands-on restoration on each one, so it’s going to take virtually forever. Okay, enjoy the day, and I look forward enormously to getting to talk with you again!

It's always worth checking out and Dennis himself had some very kind words to say about this blog when I first started EOMS.Welcome back!

Many years back, much like Willie and Waylon had years before, Merle Haggard said,
"Fuck this town. I'm moving." and he left Nashville.
According to my sources, it was right after a record executive told him that "Kern River" was a bad song. In the last chapter of his career and his life, Nashville wouldn't call, play, or touch him. He felt forgotten and tossed aside. I always got a sense that he wanted one last hit..one last proper victory lap of his own, and we all know deserved it. Yet it never came. And now he's gone.
Im writing this because I want to go on record and say I find it utterly disgusting the way everybody on Music Row is coming up with any reason they can to hitch their wagon to his name while knowing full and damn well what he thought about them. If the ACM wants to actually celebrate the legacy and music of Merle Haggard, they should drop all the formulaic cannon fodder bullshit they've been pumping down rural America's throat for the last 30 years along with all the high school pageantry, meat parade award show bullshit and start dedicating their programs to more actual Country Music.
While Im venting about the unjust treatment of a bonafide American music legend, I should also add, if for no other reasons than sheer principal and to get the taste I've been choking back for months now out of my mouth, that Merle was supposed to be on the cover of Garden & Gun magazine's big Country Music issue (along with myself) a few months back.
They reached out to both of us in October of last year while I was on a west coast tour. Merle was home off the road so I took a day off and traveled up to Redding.
He was so excited about it and it goes without saying that I was completely beside myself along with my Grandfather who has always been a HUGE Merle fan. We spent the whole day of the interview visiting in his living room with our families and had a wonderful conversation with the journalist. Then we spent about two hours outside being photographed by a brilliant and highly respected photographer named David McClister until Merle had enough...he was still recovering from a recent bout of double pneumonia at the time and it was a bit cold that day on the ranch.
But then at the last minute, the magazine's editor put Chris Stapleton on the cover without telling anyone until they had already gone to print. Don't get me wrong, Chris had a great year and deserves a million magazine covers...but thats not the point.
Its about keeping your word and ethics.
Chris also knows this as he called me personally to express his disgust at the situation. Dude's a class act.
The editor later claimed in a completely bullshit email apology to both Merle's publicist and ours (Chris and I share the same publicist) that they didn't get any good shots that day.
David McClister..
2 hour shoot..
no good photos..
OK buddy,..whatever you say.
Anyway, Merle passed away right after it came out.
Some days, this town and this industry have a way of making we wish I could just go sit on Mars and build glass clocks.
Sturgill
UPDATED:
Shortly after I initially posted this it was announced that Miranda Lambert would be the award recipient.
Before people start chasing clickbait by putting words in my mouth I feel the need to clarify that I was not aware of this at the time of my original post and my words were in no way directed at her. I know that Merle liked and respected her so it's good to see there is at least some blue sky in all of this.
I don't know Miranda nor have I ever met her but something tells me that in her heart, she knows I'm dead on. I am also aware that the ACM is a West Coast organization originally created to recognize West Coast artists like Merle and they have handed Merle many trophies over the years,..even in the last 15 or so mind you. It's also worth noting that the last one was handed to him by none other than Miranda Lambert herself.
But all of this is irrelevant as none of it has anything to do with the original point I was trying to make. My point was that all of these organizations don't walk it like they talk it. I called The ACM out directly because they are simply the latest in a long line of organizations that have done the same since Merle's death...and even before. Showing homage and handing lifetime achievement awards to the greats of yesterday while claiming to uphold and hold dear the original values and integrity of Country music's legacy. Yet these are just hollow words...merely empty semantics. One needs only to look glancingly at the majority of the music that they, along with the CMA's, predominantly choose to recognize and promote at their award shows.
I fully realize that as I type this, meetings and conversations are taking place on music Row to ensure I am blackballed from the industry and that's perfectly fine with me. Im not sure how you can blackball somebody you don't acknowledge in the first place anyway. Yet, even though they mostly go out of their way to ignore artists like myself and Jason Isbell, I assure you they are more than aware of our existence. They are also well aware that we don't need them. Our last albums went to #1 without any help from the Mainstream Country Music establishment...and our next albums will too. With that said, I have no more need to make enemies with these people than I have a need to be their friends. If anything I'm trying to help them. Because more and more everyday, people are waking up to the situation and they are pissed. Perhaps Country Music, especially Nashville, should wake up too before it's too late.
I should also go ahead and add here that whether or not I am nominated for a CMA award this year, I will not be attending the ceremony for no other reason than the fact I already have a sold out show scheduled in Des Moines, Iowa on the night of the awards ceremony and I have no plans to change that.
Mostly though, I just wish Merle was still alive.
I'd love for them to all hear his thoughts on the matter.
P.S. Fuck this town. I'm moving.Sturgill Simpson

Death in Vegas' Richard Fearless has been a longterm fan of everyone's favourite experimental electronica duo Chris & Cosey. So has adult entertainer, writer, and artist Sasha Grey. So Sasha Grey and Richard Fearless teamed up for a new C&C/Throbbing Gristle inspired album that came out a few months back.
Chris & Cosey then did the honourable thing and decided to remix one of Death in Vegas' tracks. The result is this blisteringly globular, delightfully dark take on Consequences of Love

I am not sure when I first came across the Bazooka art collective, sadly not as well known outside France as they should be. They did some illustrations for the NME back in 1977 or 78 and were responsible alongside Barney Bubbles for the stunning cover for Elvis Costello's 'Armed Forces' album.

I have to keep sending off to France for their books (a very expensive way of getting them by the time you pay postage!) There was a site 'Une Regarde Moderne' (again now 404) that commented on the news daily in art form and from what I can gather with my (very) limited French they ran into copyright problems with their photo-manipulation.Pranksters! They used to do supplements for the French paper 'Liberation' and after the artwork was approved they would change it just before printing!

So whats with the Why?
Well,
Why Why Why began its life early 1985 on an 8 track Teac in Peckham Rye. I had a Linn drum and made a beat, a hand recorded synth sequence, acoustic and bass was it. It was on all the time I was in the flat. In a way it was my personal thing, a kind of electro Afrobeat sound making a fun atmosphere in the place. I had a visit from Benny who had not long been with us at The Woodentops and I played him it. We started obsessing on it and pretty soon it became more percussive, the guitar was playing the sequence and so it had developed a live band shape to it. So it went to the rehearsal room to see how it worked. All the band instantly loved it. It was our new imaginary disco tune.
We had been in the habit of playing the same song endlessly all day, bits of it over and over, then putting the changes together, all of this after hours and hours of just playing the main riff and holding it until it had our legs going and had finally become tight and danceable . Why Why Why went though the process.
I came in with the chorus one day, I'd found myself singing it, knowing not 'why'. It was slowly developing from a remix kind of thing into a song. It was when we began singing why why why forever over the chorus to be able to sing and play at the same tim , that the neighbours, always tolerant to the max began to wonder how much more they wanted us in there. We got our first 'Please will you shut up or play something else for gods sake' screech-a-thon. That from a bunch of artists who did our artwork and all!
We just loved to play it. the atmosphere sounded better again than at my flat. Somewhere in the middle of it I began writing words for it, it was no longer 'Africa Satellite' it was now Why Why Why. The world was at war in the Middle East, It was a moment of chaos, peak oil anxiety and nuclear debate. Danger of all kinds for mankind. It was hard to stop writing words in fact.
So far the acoustic guitar had generally been in there not as a prominent feature just chipping away keeping time. When I started singing verses it began to come forward in the mix. Thats when the almost flamenco aspect came to the front with the African style. I had so much lyrics written by now. As work on the song had been interrupted by tours, where we played it at sound checks to keep it warm, it had taken almost to xmas that same year to the point where I asked if anyone else would like to add a verse so they could begin writing.I would just pull verses out of the bag at random. Simon and Benny did so. We did our first recording of the song at Terminal Studios, Elephant and Castle. It was that recording Adrian Sherwood made his remix from. I have it somewhere.Perhaps I will dig it out. We recorded it again for the album 'Giant'. Can you believe? we ran out of time to complete it. A big disappointment for us. It should have been on that album.
So our favourite song to play grew into a club hit. For us this was the most exciting thing, what we thought was club floor on our terms worked for others too. We went out to clubs all the time in all different countries and loved to dance instead of going to another bar or the hotel room. So our dream disco in the rehearsal room was now a reality! Its well documented how both the remix and the live version became part of the club scene. Its a great story and there's no need to repeat the story here.
In 2015 Trevor Fung, a Dj who features in the original explosion of the track, messaged me to see if he could do a modern remix. I realised there is no 80's master tape to pass on to him. The demo 24 track master disappeared long ago and there was no chance of getting the live version master either. So I asked him what tempo he wanted and The Woodentops went in to Slowfoots' studio and recorded it in an afternoon.
In the time it took Trevor (He's a busy dj) to deliver his mix I began to get more enquiries from dj's looking to do a mix themselves. All people i'd witnessed or new friends like Leo Mas coming in and it was mushrooming into more then just a remix. In the middle of it all I'd met Mark Jones, whose label Wall Of Sound I was well aware of, I was into a lot of their releases in the 90's. With him came more remixes and it was fast looking like a 'versions' album. Then the mixes began to be delivered. I began to see what happens when they are played out too. Oh my gosh! On its 30th anniversary the track has fresh new legs from people who adored the original. A few different 'scenes' are covered in the collection. Justin Strauss and Bryan Mette have somehow made it sound Paradise Garage, New York. Leo Mas and Fabrice have made it pure flamenco disco. Steve Proctor and Trevor Fung have brought out a more hard Detroit angle, Spatial Awareness's one is lyrical, wormy and dark, Lisbon Kid have a cinematic ultra modern electro chic Ritz sound to theirs and Denis The Night's version is totally rocking Panic in the party. Stampede.
A few DJ's/acts had been ' honoured' to be asked to do one but in the end were too busy to get it done in time. Shame perhaps, but Im not sure the package would be any better than it already is in my opinion.
So any second now its out there, on sale. I'ts already banging away in many a night club, the DJ reviews are amazing. Even Boy George replied to his copy in capital letters of respect. We have numerous 5 out of 5's no bad reviews, there's always one mix that they like that stops the hatchet coming down!
We had Move me, Well Well well, Good Thing, Everyday Living, Stop This car, quite a few that went down great but I think this song is really our 'biggest'. It went outside the Rock and Pop, played in the clubs as a live piece amongst mainly computerised tracks, it crossed over before anyone else knew what crossing over was at the time. Its back !

I have to say that Rolo is one of the nicest blokes I have ever met. I first came across The Woodentops pretty early in their career when they were doing the first of their month of Wednesday night gigs at Dingwalls in Camden where I was working at the time. I was working behind the bar when it came for them to do their set but even as I was pouring drinks I was very impressed by them so much so that the following week I made sure that I took my break while they were playing and the next two times I took the entire night off. I used to see them as much as I could when I was living in London (and even had the original bassist move into our house) and after moving to Amsterdam I caught them there (and Haarlem, Utrecht and Rotterdam). I did unfortunately miss seeing the funktified line up with Skip MacDonald having moved out here to Australia by then.Anyway I saw that they were releasing a 100 copies of the new remixes CD so I sent a message to Rolo asking if he could keep me one until my next dole cheque and he said not to worry he would send me a copy. As I said, he truly is one of the nicest guys

I want an all-female death metal act, and I want that group to put out the album VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE, and then I want President Clinton to find cabinet positions for each member of the band.Because I believe in America

'I see Dub Mutations as an upgrade of the Macro Dub Infection (1/2/8) aesthetic, which I curated for Virgin Records many moons ago. Again, it gleefully departs from the traditional masters - Scientist, King Tubby etc - and revels in tearing up the rules, and exploring a sea of fx drenched sound. The past, present and future of dub is celebrated, befittingly through the mixing desk. As time travel, deep space and spectral visitations are magically probed, and bass, drum and noise are pushed mercilessly into the red. I guess I wanted to emulate the style of mix I made with King Midas Sound for FACT a couple of years ago, and create a non-linear narrative that‘s challenging and full of surprises, with added layers of sounds/effects, but most of all I wanted to create a mix that would be compellingly fresh. And as ever it’s a sketch of what dub was, is and can be, and how dub can act as a postmodern breakdown of sound - not just a smoker’s delight. Most of all, I wanted to just get lost in the sounds myself. Immerse yourself!'

Everybody talks about the end of the world, but we've actually asked the big question: What will it be like?

Ballard replied...

I dream of: Dying in a car crash with Madonna. Having sex with Hillary Clinton. Appearing in Zapruder frame 313 with Jackie Kennedy. Being transformed into a TV channel. Detonating a nuclear weapon over Disneyland. Having all the whores in Moscow call me on their mobile phones. Seeing time make a new beginning. Persuading Neil Armstrong to return to Earth. Meeting my younger selves on the virtual-reality highways of tomorrow. Being buried under the main runway at London's Heathrow Airport

1. Don’t smoke cigarettes.
2. Drive old Japanese cars. Easy and cheap to fix & they run for fucking ever.
3. Buy most of your groceries from the produce section. Most of that other shit is not actually food. You don’t need it.
4. Ride your bike instead of driving as much as you can. You need the exercise and gas is expensive.
5. Don’t have kids. They’re not miracles, they’re people. 7 billion is too fucking many. Find some other way to give your dull existence some meaning. BTW they’re expensive.
6. Get your clothes from thrift stores. With the physique you’ll have from riding your bike, you’ll look hot wearing anything.
7. Learn to fix things. Tons of great books and youtube vids on fixing anything. Or ask an old dude. People used to fix things. No shit.
8. Learn a trade – Carpentry, plumbing, electrical, auto mechanics, tailoring, computer/electronics repair, something They can’t fucking outsource. No one gives a shit about your Masters in Dostoyevsky…. fix something, dumbass, fix something!
9. If you like booze, drink at home with your neighbors. Drunk driving is for assholes, rich ones with lawyers.
10. Do people favors. It’s called Cooperation. It’s how the world worked before money. They will return the favor, or someone will. No shit. This really works.
11. Make things – Look around you. What do you see? Yah, shitty stuff made by impoverished enslaved people far away. Pick anything. Make a better one. People want good shit. You won’t get rich, but you’ll get by.
12. If you live in America – don’t get sick and avoid injury. Wear your fucking helmet and put lights on your bike.
13. Find work you love. If you can’t do that, then find a job where you love the people.
14. Junkies and addicts are like toddlers. They just want to shit all over you and everything. The messes they make can get expensive. Avoid them if you can.
15. Don’t buy shit on credit, remember what happened to America? Cash only, fuckers. Can’t afford it? Don’t fucking buy it!
16. Preventable expenses - STD’s, abortions, DWI’s, lung cancer, head injuries, speeding tickets, cirrhosis of the liver.
17. Don’t go on fancy dates if you’re not fancy. Most people kind of despise the rich anyway.
18. When you go see shows, bring a flask in. That way you can afford to buy a record.
19. If you had told me 15 years ago that Coca Cola would put tap water in plastic bottles and motherfuckers would BUY IT …… No fuckin way.
20. Don’t get cable. Asshole. There is nothing on. I promise. $100 a month ? Fuck no!Via

Sunday, 21 August 2016

BIG thanks to Jesse for the photographs
WOW!
That's about all I can say.
As my friend Alan said:

I thought I'd encountered (Robin Casinader) and even met and even promoted some pretty eccentric piano geniuses from Melbourne down the years (Anthony Pateras). Then this arvo I went to Daniel Tucceri's gig at the Bendigo where he embraced the possibilities of a bashed up upright and belted Mozart, Beethoven, some Metal band I dunno and Mussorgsky all enhanced with wild synth and multi instrument interpretations of a few classics. Best gig in months and months by miles